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Chris had a good game against Italy, but, he got bounced once in defence and missed another tackle shooting up. Joe requires centres to be able to defend first, so I'm not sure he's as well positioned as you might think (now if he played full back . . . )

Byrne is a very solid player who does a good job at ten. If he was English, South African or a NZer, he'd have a very long career playing top-end club professional rugby without ever bothering national selection.

Carberry is something else entirely. The type of out-half that we have never had in the professional era and always presumed had to have a foreign accent. A player who makes thing happen, and if needs be can do it all himself.

Yep. Alex King, for example. Paul Burke was another.

I think Holland would have emerged ahead of Byrne but for that injury.

"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven into an age of unreason if we dig deep into our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men" Edward R Murrow

"Little by little, we have been brought into the present condition in which we are able neither to tolerate the evils from which we suffer, nor the remedies we need to cure them." - Livy

"I think that progress has been made by two flames that have always been burning in the human heart. The flame of anger against injustice and the flame of hope that you can build a better world" - Tony Benn

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Serious answer: could have been a move that they were working on. Maul with a play off 10 instead of 9? Doesn't seem outrageous to me tbh, though unfortunate. Realistically these injuries in training say more about his overall physical shape rather than the training itself imo.

Spot on. He was either unlucky, likely, or his body is not (yet) up to the rigours of international rugby and the requisite preparation & training.

Players repeatedly breaking down in training is normally symptomatic of poor conditioning. Hopefully that's not the case here.....

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Serious answer: could have been a move that they were working on. Maul with a play off 10 instead of 9? Doesn't seem outrageous to me tbh, though unfortunate. Realistically these injuries in training say more about his overall physical shape rather than the training itself imo.

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According to ESPN stats, In that match Garry Ringrose missed 3 tackles out of of 3. Chris Farrell missed 3 of out of 6. Yes, defending 13 is harder than defending 12, but It's not like Ringrose goes for big, gainline hits.

All of the Leinster fans are blaming Aki for the defense against England but in my opinion Ringrose was far more at fault. The 13 is meant to be defensive organizer and a communicator and Ringrose is neither. These two games aren't one-offs either, he was very poor against England in the six nations last year. He was atrocious against Saracens in the champions cup final - where he single-handedlyblew two walk-in tries - and has been in bad form for the guts of a year.

Selecting Ringrose over Farrell should be as contentious as selecting Stander over Conan, at this point.

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Camp Joe in lock down mode, Personal & promotional appearances by players are being cancelled

Thats exactly what what a group of player who are fatigued and stressed out from the amount of work they have been doing. More work.

I said this a while back, and think it’s even more relevant now, there is a lack of personality balance in that squad, for every Johnny Sexton/ POM 120% serious and work type you need a Zebo to balance things because not everybody functions properly under the conditions where there is not enough downtime. Without resurrecting the Zebo debate for the millionth time he offers as much off the field as he does on it.

DOC played the role of the joker in previous squads, We have all seen the videos of Fla marching with a sign about his hair. It never affected their performance on the pitch.

Where are the anecdotes of players enjoying themselves, taking the piss and getting up to shenanigans to distract from what is a hugely stressful environment? There was some ultra choreographed social event when they were in Belfast, and that can’t be enough. This element is a vital ingredient of a happy squad and its appears to be resigned to history as the modern day squad seeks to be more professional that ever before, handle more stress and preparation while the Craic should be increasing it seems to be disappearing, even outlawed under joes exacting attention to details.

I would wager that the players are just not enjoying what they are doing, and some won’t admit it, but they hate how stressful it is.

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Serious answer: could have been a move that they were working on. Maul with a play off 10 instead of 9? Doesn't seem outrageous to me tbh, though unfortunate. Realistically these injuries in training say more about his overall physical shape rather than the training itself imo.

Could well be something like that, but it wouldn't be worth commenting on if Sexton hadn't a habit of playing as if he thinks he's a blindside and spent half his career on the sidelines because of it.

"There are probably more annoying things than being hectored about African development by a wealthy Irish rock star in a cowboy hat, but I can't think of one at the moment"

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